He was being advised he would do better to continue his search in the larger towns. One of his stone suppliers in Bordeaux had been a whisker away from locating him a replacement. The son of a water merchant, who had also drawn a bad number but who, by virtue of having a brother already in the service, had been exempted and was thus free to sign up. But just as the matter was about to be settled, a notary had snaffled the man up for the astronomical figure of 10,000 francs.
He was also being advised to consider returned servicemen, who were highly prized by recruitment boards for substitution purposes. His envoys in the Orne region had thus been on the lookout for such a rare gem and had ended up locating a young soldier who might well have taken Auguste’s place: a man by the name of Roussel, who had been discharged with a leg wound but who had spent two years recuperating. He stood at five foot three, incisors and canines intact, and although he was quite unattractive and prone to haemorrhoids, his legs, so it was said, were once again beyond criticism. His price was to be negotiated by his uncle, with whom he lodged, but the latter would consider nothing less than 9000 francs, half of which was to be paid in advance, which Casimir considered too steep a price given the candidate’s dubious constitution. However, the man very quickly found a taker and was acquired by the broker for a Parisian insurance company, who had come all the way to that part of the world to solicit business.
Every time they have been ready to settle, the distances involved have brought it all undone. I personally negotiated three deals at Laon, Orléans and Beauvais, none of which came through on account of the sort of people with whom I was dealing, and I have lost no less than 800 francs, what with the three journeys, the cost of lodgings, the advances paid, the brokers and the meals I was required to offer them.
One thing is now clear: there is not so much as a single man offive foot one to be hadfor thousands of leagues around for less than 8000 francs. But worry not. We shall extricate you from this cursed conscription and I am certain you shall soon have your sister’s husband to thank, for he has taken the matter in hand. As a former soldier, he knows the taverns where these people drink and knows better than anyone how to talk to them. He proposed setting off for Toulon, where the African contingents land, but your sister has objected. It seems that town has become a cesspit where every dealer from the capital engaged in the trade of men is looking for stock. When a boat arrives, the insurance company agents and brokers appear, their pockets lined with gold, seeking to extract the signature of soldiers weakened by tropical fevers and infirmities after their long voyage at sea. They entice them into disreputable establishments, where they are drugged and encouraged to spend the substitution price they have not yet been paid on whores and orgies. The broker who has encouraged them to drink up then promises them 6000 francs and pays them only half that amount, the balance being set off against the cost of their debauchery, which is calculated at a usurious rate. He then sells them on for 10,000 francs to poorfathers who are willing to make any sacrifice in order to save their boy. In any event, I read in my friend Tripier’s paper that the recruitment boards had received very strict orders to refuse these damaged, cast-off soldiers from Africa.
Your brother-in-law has thus settled upon Brittany, where, it seems, he is owed some favours by old acquaintances. He has written to them. And now we’re waiting.
Auguste let out a plaintive sigh as he refolded his father’s letter, and then he stood up.
‘Aunt, I’m heading out!’
No answer.
He encountered her outside at the entrance porch to the building amid all the other residents of Rue du 10 Décembre, swooning before a troop of cuirassiers sitting proudly astride their mounts. The reflection of spring sunshine off armoured breastplates and the trembling of the ground under the horses’ hooves lent the atmosphere a warlike frisson, galvanising onlookers to the point where they nigh lost their voices bawling To Berlin! To Berlin!
Clothilde, who in the ordinary course would have peppered him with questions the moment he set foot outside the apartment, spared him not so much as a glance, so preoccupied was she with gazing at the soldiers’ tanned faces under their helmets, their powerful muscles, their puffed-up chests. Observing her surreptitiously, he noted in horror that despite her fifty-six years, she was quivering with desire as she inhaled the powerful smell of these battle-ready creatures through flared nostrils.
‘Aunt, I’m heading out!’ he repeated deliberately, raising his voice.
‘I’m making another attempt to invite the Gonthier-Joncourts and their daughter to my Tuesday salon. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about it. I expect you to be at your best.’
‘Love is far too significant a matter simply to marry some eyesore in order to avoid military service. And anyway, in order to be exempted on the grounds of having to support the family, one must make the claim prior to the draw and not after the event! So, it is too late.’
‘Had you listened to me —’
‘Remind me, these people, they make bricks, do they not? Or are they in coal? Or is it patents? If I may be so bold, Aunt, you are ill-placed to speak to me of marriage – you, who have always been so opposed to it!’
‘That has nothing to do with it, as you very well know. If women are still marrying, it is because they are unaware of the law. But you, you are not a woman. And yes, these people are in coal, but you, might I remind you, are in nothing. And the goose who is hoping one day for a fool to steal away her inheritance is Eulalie, her parents’ only daughter – and I would have loved the fool in this story to be you.’
‘At just nineteen years of age Mademoiselle Eulalie already has the proportions of a well-built country notary. Imagine how she will look at thirty! And anyway, she’s a sweet girl who certainly deserves better than a man who shall never love her.’
His aunt shrugged her shoulders and exhaled.
‘You will not be stealing that Gonthier-Joncourt girl from anybody, and well she knows it. As do her parents. A match with a proper young lady, even an unpromising one, who offers you the means to pursue your passion for . . . for philosophical reflection, would be of far greater use to you than those good-for-nothings loitering about in your socialist cafés. You want to devote your existence to pondering the universe? So be it. A de Rigny may do with his life whatsoever he wishes, but he is forbidden from being poor!’
Clothilde articulated this family maxim without so much as a glance at her nephew, as a cuirassier bestowed upon her a concupiscent leer, bringing a flush to her face. Auguste was perfectly mortified.
‘Well then, I see . . . I shall leave you to your bestial contemplation . . . Good evening, Aunt.’ And with that he set off for his headquarters, namely the Café Madrid on Boulevard Montmartre.
2
SO I STAY AT GRANNY SOIZE’S place when I reach the island and definitely not with my father.
Despite being his aunt, as the youngest child of a second marriage she is only eight years older than him. She never had any children of her own, but she had me.
To see her trotting about the village in her beige raincoat and little concrete-lacquered grey curls, you’d peg her as being between seventy-five and eighty-five years old. When this story started she was ninety-three. I’d just like to say that here on our island, where its residents enjoy both a healthy lifestyle and strong community ties – you eat what you grow in your own vegetable garden and everybody has their nose in their neighbour’s business – there’s a national record number of centenarians. With her ramrod posture, she dresses to the nines even just to go out for bread; her principal motto has always been maximum dignity at all times. You’ll see her at 9.30 am at the bakery, 9.45 at the minimart, 9.50 at the newsagency to pick up her copy of the Ouest-France paper and at 10 o’clock at the cemetery to give her best to the family.